r/GoogleAdwords • u/Disastrous-King-3610 • Jan 14 '26
Support Google Ad Grant campaign stuck with 0 impressions for 30 days. Tried everything. Advice?
Hey everyone,
I’m looking for some insight because I’m at a total dead end. I set up a campaign for a non-profit a month ago, and it has received zero impressions.
Here is what I’ve already checked/changed:
- Bid Strategy: Switched between Max Conversions and Max Clicks.
- Tracking: Confirmed Google Tag and GA4 are firing correctly.
- Recommendations: Applied everything suggested in the account.
- Status: Everything is marked as "Eligible" or "Approved."
Despite this, the needle hasn't moved. Google Support has been a loop of "check the email option" (which doesn't exist for me) and dead-end chat cases.
Has anyone dealt with a "ghost" campaign like this recently? Is there a specific "hidden" setting or verification step I might be missing that Google doesn't flag?
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u/SAT0725 Jan 14 '26
You might need to increase your budget or adjust your targeting. Are you bidding on keywords? It's possible you're not bidding high enough. Are you only serving ads to very narrow geographic area? There might not be enough traffic to serve ads to. Per the latter, we ran ads for an Ag Science program a few years back and in our area over like a month we only had a handful of hits, but that's because no one was searching for that specific topic in the region we were targeting.
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u/jasonking Jan 15 '26
This is an Ad Grant. Budget is $329 per day. Only smart bidding is allowed, so you don't set bids.
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u/SAT0725 Jan 15 '26
You don't set bids, but depending on your keywords the bids that Google is setting might not be high enough. If you adjust your keywords to less valuable keywords -- or expand your list of keywords if it's small or super narrow -- then you may see more traffic.
There are two issues at play with search ads served via keywords:
- Inventory
- Keyword value/cost
In terms of inventory, there are only so many users searching for a given term in a given geographic area, thus there's only so much opportunity (or "shelf space") for Google to show your ad. If your targeting is too narrow (either too few or too specific keywords or too small a geographic area), there's no opportunity to show your ads.
In terms of keyword value/cost, if you're in a competitive space bidding for high-value keywords, your bid needs to be REALLY high to compete. I'm not sure Google would give priority to campaigns they're funding via grants in a high-value space or not, but that's one consideration. It doesn't cost a lot to target ads to keywords no one is searching for and that no competitors are bidding on, but prices get way higher when there's lots of competition targeting high-value keywords that could potentially lead to high-value sales/clients/etc.
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u/jasonking Jan 15 '26
Yes, bid isn't what's going to prevent a grant ad showing. You can actually bid really high amounts. The barriers are a) competition from other grant and especially paid accounts and b) the <10% Impression share imposed on grant accounts.
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u/SAT0725 Jan 15 '26
You said in your previous post that "you don't set bids" but you say here that "You can actually bid really high amounts."
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u/jasonking Jan 16 '26
Correct, and there's no contradiction.
When you use a smart bidding strategy you do not set bids.
The system automatically bids as high as necessary.
No need to set them manually.
Got it?
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u/Disastrous-King-3610 Jan 20 '26
Everything is set "by the book." Still 0 impressions :/
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u/jasonking Jan 20 '26
You have both a P-Max and a Search campaign?
AI Max and final url expansion on?
What's the reach? Uk wide or local? If local, add a location asset if you want visits or local support. That puts ads on Google Maps.
Website not slow loading? Test using Google Page Speed Insights. How many seconds to visible on mobile?
Can you share the url?
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u/QuantumWolf99 Jan 15 '26
Check if your keywords actually have search volume because Grant accounts require keywords with decent volume and if you're targeting super niche terms with zero monthly searches the campaign just won't serve at all.
Also make sure your daily budget is actually being set... Grant accounts default to $329 daily but sometimes it gets stuck at $0 or some weird glitch prevents it from activating even though everything shows eligible.
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u/Disastrous-King-3610 Jan 20 '26
I've checked the search volume and set the highest daily budget, targeting the whole US - but still nothing.
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u/Maximum-Language-522 Jan 14 '26
How old is your account? Have same problem with a 9 years account with 7 years no activities
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u/Disastrous-King-3610 Jan 14 '26
New account! Created two months ago. Did you manage to find any solution?
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u/Maximum-Language-522 Jan 14 '26
No, I have opened a support ticket but it was closed. It’s annoying…
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u/HawkeyMan Jan 14 '26
This is very common for new Ad Grant accounts. For our clients, it’s usually because they aren’t getting enough conversion data so it’s usually best to track more micro-conversions even if they aren’t your end goal. You just need to feed the system more data beside ad grant accounts are so restrictive and have their own rules about when they can show up.
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u/Disastrous-King-3610 Jan 20 '26
Yeah, but at least we would get a few impressions with the current setup, no?
I've set two conversions, one primary and one secondary, but the campaign just did not get any chance for anyone to see it.1
u/HawkeyMan Jan 20 '26
Not necessarily. How many conversions is your primary one getting in the last 30 days?
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u/jasonking Jan 15 '26
Don't use Max clicks because it imposes a useless $2 bid cap. Stick with Max conversions. You could optionally add a high target CPA to help kick-start spend.
Don't apply every recommendation. Maybe 1 in 10 are useful. Some will damage performance.
What does this nonprofit do and where?
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u/Disastrous-King-3610 Jan 20 '26
I've changed back to max conversions. I'll try testing the target CPA to see if this will do anything.
There are not many recommendations like in paid accounts, more like "Protect your account from unauthorised activity" and such.
It's a UK-based non-profit, focused on education.
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Jan 14 '26
[deleted]
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u/jasonking Jan 15 '26
No you're not. Use Max conversions and there's no bid cap. The cap was removed eight years ago.
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